Next Step in the Kitchen Table Redo

I just finished the stripping/sanding part of the kitchen table redo.  It looks good!  The wood is a really cool color underneath the two or three layers of paint and stain it had on it. 

 This table has seen some serious use.  This is what the back of half of the table top looked like.  Pretty gross. I couldn't get the wood brace all the way off because one of the holes has a plug in it so I just had to let it swivel around while I stripped and sanded.

These are the finished base and table top pieces. Well, finished with taking off the old paint and stain.  It looks like the table was originally a light oak stain and someone stained it darker red brown at some later point.  Then the table top had the brown paint on it too. 

It was quite the job getting all of that off.  The table top was the hardest part.  I used stripper a couple times, but it didn't get all the paint off.  It did loosen it up though, so that was nice.  I didn't want to be near the stripper as I was worried about the fumes, so I did it outside and put it on really quick then stayed away while it did its magic.  After I used up the stripper I decided sanding would probably have better results and the wood is solid so I wasn't worried about it taking too much off.  Sure enough it worked like a charm.  Well, a very long and time consuming charm.  I worked on this all morning and it's 1:30PM now.  I don't really want to add up how many hours that means I spent sanding. :)  The good thing is that it is essentially done now.  There is a curved wood piece that goes on the underside of the table top that I have not finished, but all in good time. I'm done for today for sure.

Kitchen Table Redo

I wish I had a beforehand picture of the table, but I neglected to take one.  Bill's parents gave us a table they had picked up at DI several years ago.  It's a sturdy nice-looking table, but the DI people put packing tape on the top of it and when my FIL went to take it off, the varnish came off.  So annoying.  He tried to fix it by painting the table top, but he used the wrong kind of paint and it ended up being really sticky.  It's been sitting in their garage for years and they said we could have it.  I've never refinished something, but it seemed definitely worth the effort. I took it apart this morning and started the stripping process.  I think Las Vegas temperatures were a bit too hot for the stripper, so it only kind of worked.  I'll have to do it again, but at least some of the paint and polyurethane came off.  I want to finish it in the ebony stain we did everything else in.  The original stain was beautiful, but it doesn't match our chairs and the table top is a problem as I mentioned. 

The table is round with two leaves that will let 6 people sit around it if we put them in.  It is solid wood. No laminate here!  It was rather old and dusty when I took it apart and the screws are pretty rusty, but it will finish nicely with some effort.  Hopefully it works out like I am planning because if it does than we are totally set up furniture-wise when we go back to Utah.  Well, for us at least.  Add the baby in and that's a different story, but we'll cross that bridge in a few months.

Here's the base and the underside of the tabletop that I dismantled. If you click on the picture you can see the color the tabletop was painted.

Here is one half of the tabletop that I am working on stripping plus the two leaves.

About those Projects

We've had a bunch of unfinished furniture floating around our laundry room and extra bedroom for weeks now waiting to be stained and finished.  I finally decided to work on them this week and get them done.  I have to say, I hate this part of building furniture.  It is so hard to get it perfect.  Not that it is ever perfect, but I at least like all the visible surfaces to be fairly smooth and varnished evenly.

Bill and I hit a real snag when we had varnished the chairs and he went at one with the polyurethane.  The stain is so super dark that everything shows up on it.  I love how it has turned out, but on this chair Bill did, for some reason the polyurethane made whitish grey streaks all over the chair.  Hideous. And we have no idea why.  So we set it aside and finished some of the other staining.  The next morning I tried again with a similar result, though on a smaller scale.  I think the polyurethane must have gotten left out in the heat and is bad now. Very annoying.  I went over a picked up a new can from Lowe's and kept on going.  Apparently it is not just the polyurethane, but something with the varnish as well.  I don't really know.  You can see it on the picture with both nightstands on it. The drawer on the left has some grey streaks on it too.  I decided it was not worth redoing anything over, and the few places that ended up a bit streaky are not super noticeable.  It's do it yourself anyway so it's supposed to have character, right? :)

Anyway, I am just super glad to be done.  These are all the completed projects: two nightstands, an end table, 3 chairs, and a console table I designed myself with plans I had for a bigger one. I'm pretty proud of that.  I wanted to use the scraps we had since we have nowhere to put them when we go back to Utah.  I was able to design and build this with only 2 boards purchased. It cost $4. :)  I wanted a place to put our plants besides our kitchen table and then it will get used as an entryway table in our apartment in Utah for keys and purses and such. We have one more chair built, but it's the one with all the grey streaks, so it is going to get stained and refinished again before being put to use.  

Console table. The plants will go on it once it is fully dry and I have a cloth to put on the top so the plants don't hurt the finish.

The end table to match the one I built earlier this summer.

The nightstands. I love the knobs and they will look fantastic in our bedroom.

The chairs.  I have two more with all the pieces cut out but not put together and one that needs to be re-stained to fix the funny grey marks for a total of six.  I think I'm going to make some cushions for these chairs. Maybe in bright yellow or lime green or even turquoise.  I haven't decided yet.  I love super bright colors these days.

 You know what the real beauty of all this furniture is? We don't have to buy these things when we go back to Utah and need to furnish an apartment!  I figured it out and with all the furniture we made, the total price tag came up to a bit over $300. That doesn't include the sander and saw we bought, but those are going to last forever.  Bill's parents gave us a kitchen table that I have just started the process of refinishing. When that is done, we will have a table and 6 chairs, 2 end tables, a coffee table, a console table, and 2 nightstands. Not bad for $300.  And now I have some serious carpentry skills that I plan to use for many projects in the future.  Some of these are going to last a really long time. Others probably not so much just because of the low quality of wood we chose to buy.  I'll do that differently in the future.  I think the chairs will be the first to kick the bucket, but hey, they're pretty now and they work.  

Why I Haven't Blogged Lately

I keep thinking I should sit down and write a blog entry, but every time I do I wonder what in the world I should write about. This blog has historically been a place to share projects I've done, adventures Bill and I have gone on, and other entertaining things that make our lives amusing. The fact is, lately things have gotten rather boring around here, and the things I am doing don't seem so interesting to share.  I read a friend's blog post today though, and it inspired me to write about something different.

I have been struggling lately with being content.  There are lots of reasons for this.  I'm in my first trimester of pregnancy and dealing with all that comes with that.  I can't even really complain about it because my symptoms aren't that bad. I have not thrown up, I have only gotten close a couple of times, and most of the time I feel pretty good. But there are times every day that I don't, and they are frustrating. Maybe if I was super busy and the days were passing quickly I would not find it a problem, but time is moving very slowly right now.  I am starting to expand in areas I kind of wish I weren't, though it's really only me that can see it. Call me crazy since I wanted to be pregnant, but hey, every pregnant girl goes through it.

It is very hot these days in Las Vegas.  I think it hit 113 degrees yesterday and that seems to be the norm for around 5PM these days.  I can bare the heat enough to work outside on some of my building projects until about 11AM or noon.  That is when the shade goes away on the back porch and the varnish starts drying too fast or I am sweaty beyond belief and can't deal with it anymore. In my friend's post I linked to above, she talked about getting married so young that she had not yet defined who she was, so now she wonders who she was before she was Simon's mom.  I didn't get married young.  I had plenty of years to find myself and I feel pretty good about what I found. I love the outdoors. I love to be active. I like playing sports and hiking and rock climbing and those kinds of things.  Adventures make my life interesting and that's why this blog is mostly about the ones Bill and I have.  This heat is seriously cramping my style.  Oh, and being in a new place without good friends and people to do things with.  I have felt more isolated this summer than I have in years.  I think it is the lack of interaction with people during the day and the lack of things to do.  We came to Las Vegas because Bill got an amazing internship that pays really well and we were excited to be near his family.  They are wonderful.  It is really fun to live near them.  But in the process I sacrificed a number of excellent internship opportunities of my own and nothing much has surfaced since we got here.  It does look like I have found some volunteer opportunities with the city, so hopefully some good will come of that.  I just got a phone call about it yesterday so I do not know the details yet. 

Below it all, I have some huge uncertainties about the future.  I'm so excited to get back into school in August.  At the same time, I only have one year left until my college education ends for good.  I just don't see a PhD in my future, so this looks to be the end of the road for full time schooling.  I imagine I will take classes in the future, but never a full time program again.  The fact is, I love going to school. I adore learning and having projects and papers and things that I feel like i have accomplished.  Coming back to grad school after three years in the workforce was a dream come true for me despite not having a clue what I was going to do with the degree or what path my life would take.  I am a firm believer in the value of education whether I am making big bucks from it or not.  But now that I see the end in sight, it is bittersweet.  I'm having this baby the first month of my last semester.  How the heck is that even going to work?!  I have no regrets over being pregnant now, but I am trying not to think about how hard those first three months are going to be.  Then when they are over, I'm trying not to think about what it will be like to be done with school and not have a clue what to do with myself.  I'm sure wonderful things will come with starting motherhood and having an infant to care for, but I still wonder and worry and particularly as my level of contentedness this summer has swiftly diminished over time, I just think about the future and hope something changes in me between now and next summer.

This has gotten a bit too serious even for me. :)  I'm not doing terrible, but I do have these worries and fears that I am dealing with and writing about them helps.  I know I'm not the only one out there who has thought of these things and wondered how they will survive and be happy and content.  Things will work out, and in the meantime I'll keep trying to find interesting things to do despite the blasted heat.  I have never been a fan of Las Vegas, but I made a valiant effort coming down here to give it a fair chance.  It really is a nice place, but this cramping of mine and Bill's lifestyle is driving me a bit bonkers.  Mountains and trees and beautiful hikes and mountain vistas, how I miss you!  Bill is going to have to get one seriously amazing job offer for us to come back to Las Vegas for good or go to Phoenix or some other place this hot in the summertime.  It really should not be allowed.  I will do my best not to complain about temperatures in the 90s ever again.  That is cool people!

The news is out

For all those lovely people that read my blog now and again, it's time for my announcement that has made me unable to think of anything to blog about for the last month.  I'm pregnant and due January 22nd!  I finally had my first appointment today after having to reschedule and they agree, I am most definitely expecting. :)  Things are going well other than a touch of morning sickness these days.  I know lots of people that have had it far worse, so I can't complain that much.  I just get to eat all the time now to avoid the sicky feelings.  I'm not particularly showing yet, though my stomach sure doesn't look the same as two months ago, but that should come soon enough. Yay for babies!

Great Weekend

Memorial Day weekend was awesome.  Wish I had some pictures to show for it... We had a big family breakfast Saturday morning, then spent the rest of the day lounging mostly.  That was great.  Bill took me out for a baked potato at Jason's Deli.  It sounded so good to me, so we headed over there. They are so huge!  We split one and it was still super filling.  That evening we watched Shrek Ever After.  Funny movie.  I recommend it.

Sunday we had a pizza palooza to celebrate my BIL Vince's birthday.  It's a family tradition.  We all go to Bill's parent's house and his dad makes a whole bunch of amazing thin crust pizzas.  He's got pizza stones, even a pizza paddle, and the process down to a science.  They made 16 pizzas.  Probably 20 people were there so we ate a serious quantity of pizza. :) 

Monday Bill helped his dad with a procedure at his dental office.  He worked for him as a dental assistant as a teenager, so he helps sometimes on family procedures when we're here.  The rest of the day we spent building.  Bill put a coat of stain on the nightstand I had already built and I assembled the second one.  I screwed one of the boards on half an inch higher than I was supposed to and didn't realize it, so I ended up cutting a bunch of the boards shorter to fit before I realized what had happened.  Not a big deal.  It looks great.  I just got to use my saw more. :)

We went out to Thai food with Bill's aunt and uncle Monday night. They took us to this restaurant up in northwest Las Vegas that was amazing!  Bill's uncle went to Thailand on his mission so he knows good Thai food.  He ordered in Thai and everything.  It was pretty sweet. 

Good weekend overall.  It's finally starting to get hot here during the day, but thankfully is still cooling down at night.  I think it hit a 100 degrees for the first time this weekend.  The worst is when it only gets down to like 90 degrees in the evening. That's what I'm not looking forward to, but so far I've really enjoyed the weather.  I used to think Las Vegas was ugly, but I kind of like it now.  It's definitely dessert, but a pretty one.

Anyway, I've got to get going on my day so I'm off.  Hope everyone else had a fantastic weekend too!

Nightstands

I just finished making the first nightstand.  It turned out so well!  It still needs to be stained and finished, but my part is done.  Bill will do that.  Now I just have to make a second one so Bill and I can both have one. :)

2 Tables

I'm currently sitting in my in-law's living room wrapped up in a blanket. It is freezing here today! Well, freezing in Henderson terms. We went to a friend's wedding reception last night and I wished I had a jacket. It was so windy and cold. I just checked and it is 63 degrees outside. That's insane! It was 95 degrees just three days ago. I'm definitely not complaining. I do think you get used to the heat really fast though. 95 really doesn't feel too bad these days. We'll see how it goes at 20 degrees hotter than that.

Bill finished two of our three living room tables last night. I built both of them, and did most of the staining part, but he finished it off. He has taken over the staining and polyurethaning of our furniture building for the summer. I build it, he finishes it. It works pretty well. :) Here are the two tables we built, one coffee table and one end table. I love them! Bill is going to do the other end table all himself, so that will be finished sometime later in the summer.

Next on my list are four chairs and two night stands for our bedroom. Bill's parents are letting us take an old kitchen table they have. It's really good quality, but not the color we want, so it's going to get stripped and refinished too this summer. Should be awesome! I think that's going to be the end of the building for now. I'd really love to build a storage bed, but I don't want to transport it back to Utah at the end of the summer and even though it's way cheaper than buying one, the wood will still probably cost around $200. We have other things to spend that money on these days. I'll have to find something else to fill my time after I'm done building those. I'm sure it won't be that hard. :)

Building and Camping

The last few days I spent my afternoons cutting, drilling, gluing, and putting together the new side table and coffee table. Bill and I went camping and hiking Friday night, and when we got back, he got in on the party and helped cut out the boards for the second side table and started putting it together.


This one I did only needs a couple coats of polyurethane on it and some putty to fill the screw holes and it will be done. I think it turned out well. I'm not sold on the ebony stain quite yet, but I'm reserving my judgment until it's completely finished. I thought I would love it, but it's a bit darker than I expected. I think it will turn out well, but we shall see. It is so fun to build! I could really use a table, as our saw sits on the ground to cut when we need it and my back is feeling the effects of that, but it's been really fun all around to make this furniture. I'm excited to keep going.

Bill and I headed out Friday night to go on a little camping/hiking trip to Keyhole Canyon. It's only about half an hour from our house and such a cool place! This was car camping at it's best. We made ourselves some tinfoil dinners and got wood from his parents' house and we were off with our gear. We hit a bit of a snag when we didn't have tinder and kindling that lit as well as we thought it would. The canyon has quite a wind coming out of it, so I started to get worried we weren't going to get the fire lit. Then we came up with a genius idea to light Bill's little denatured alcohol soda can stove and set up the wood on top of it. Worked like a charm! It burned long enough to get the wood started and we were able to get a fire hot enough to cook our dinners on the coals. They were pretty much the best tinfoil dinners I've had. It was so fun. We did some exploring Saturday morning and scrambled up and down a bunch of rock falls. It was quite fun. Definitely a great weekend.

And the building begins

When Bill and I got married, we moved into a furnished apartment. Rather than spending all of our wedding money on furniture, we instead got bedding and nice kitchen things and couch covers and that kind of thing. Well in August when we move back to Provo, we will most likely move into a normal, unfurnished apartment, so I have been thinking a lot about what I'm going to do to furnish our place. I've already mentioned that I'm going to be building some tables and things this summer, and last night was the start of it all. I've been busily browsing for tools and building plans and other such interesting things over the last couple weeks, and we went to Lowe's to buy our supplies last night and then today I picked up a couple tools at Sears that we decided to purchase. It feels like Christmas or getting married again or something like that!

My living room is currently home to all the building supplies. The wood is for two end tables and a coffee table. I'm so excited to start them today! Bill can only help me in the evenings, but since I got started so late today, he gets to be there when he gets home from work tonight. Woot!

We purchased a miter saw so that I can cut all the wood I need to, both straight and angled cuts. Also a sander and various random other tools. We already own a drill, so with those three we'll be well on our way to awesome DIY furniture. I will most definitely be posting pictures of our projects.

We also randomly did not own a vacuum until about 1PM this afternoon. Our apartment had one, albeit a very poor quality one. I never thought I'd get so excited to buy bring something home like a vacuum. Apparently I haven't owned enough things in my life, because all this acquiring of necessary things really gets me excited. :)

Trip To Roseville

My nephew Ethan got baptized on Saturday, and since I don't really have a job yet, I had plenty of time to drive up and celebrate with him. Bill had only been to four days of work when I left, so it didn't work out for him to take two days off. I can't imagine that would have gone over very well if he had asked. :) That was a bummer, but I really enjoyed seeing my brother and his family and my parents, who drove over from Utah.

I spent the ten hour drive talking to my family and friends, trying to take random pictures of cool things I saw without actually looking at the camera while I took it, since I was driving, and generally just enjoying the beautiful areas I drove through. I took some pretty crazy back roads on the way up. I have Google Maps to thank for that. I recommend asking people who know the roads better instead of relying on Google, but I did get to see the east side of Yosemite and some other really pretty places on the way up and it was a fast drive. Well, fast in terms of 9 1/2 hours instead of over 10. :)
This is a really cool dark red hill I passed. No idea what they were mining to get it that dark, but it was pretty.
I passed by this lake on the way up. It was huge and had all this white stuff all around it. I imagine it is salt, but I'm not sure.
The baptism was great. We celebrated Ethan's birthday beforehand. This is him enjoying his present from Bill and I. I his words, "I'm rich!"
These are two of my nieces, Loressa and Ella. Ella is a spitting image of me when I was five. It's like my old pictures stepped off the albums and I see her in real life. A guy actually mistook me for her mom at church on Mother's Day. Aside from it being totally possible, I thought it was awesome because she's so stinking cute. Hopefully Bill and I will have kids as cute as her, though maybe with blonde, curly hair.

It was a fantastic weekend. The trip back had a few bumps in it as my check engine light popped on right after Lake Tahoe with 400 miles left to drive. It turned out to be a minor issue that I can fix now that I'm home, but it had me a little worried for awhile. In order to get it checked out, I went a slightly different route as a nice guy from the auto shop directed me, and that's when I discovered just how crazy out of the way my trip up had been. It was fun to drive a different route home.

Disneyland!

Three days after we got to Henderson, we headed down to southern California to go to Disneyland with Bill's parents, two sisters, and one friend. This was my first time there and I loved it! I think we went on every ride there and at California Adventure. It was the best two days I've had in a long time.


Here's a few pictures from the trip.
On our way to the park. So fun!
My cute in-laws who treated us all to this amazing trip. They're the best!
A rather blurry picture of our splash mountain adventure. It was my first "roller coaster" in a long time. I was all nervous and scared, but it was so fun and I ended up riding so many more over the next couple days over on the California Adventure side of the park.

A couple shots I got off Bill, Suzanne, Miriam, Hillary, and Patricia on the teacups. I know better than to ride those. :) They would have made me so sick.

The girls waiting for Autopia and me riding it. Fastest car ride I've ever been on. Or not. Always fun though.
Waiting for Captain EO I think. Or maybe one of the other shows. I don't remember.
Waiting for one of the 3D movies. We actually didn't have to wait in very many lines, but we found ways to amuse ourselves when we did.
Califonia Screamin'. The best roller coaster in the park.

Catchup

I've been meaning to blog for weeks now but I kept forgetting and then my pictures wouldn't load and we didn't have internet set up in our house until this weekend so I just haven't gotten to it. Bill and I arrived safe to Henderson a couple weeks ago and it's been so fun the last couple weeks setting up our little house. Bill's parents are letting us live in their little rental house for the summer, and it is fantastic! We are going to be so spoiled when we move back to a small apartment in Provo. A few days after we got here we headed down to Disneyland for a family vacation. I have another post coming especially about the trip.

Now we're back in Henderson and Bill has started his summer internship. I'm still working on what I'm going to do this summer. I will try to do an internship of sorts with Henderson City, and I just applied for a parks and rec position too. I don't know if that will pan out, but it would be way fun if it did.

Here's some pictures of our cute house.The outside isn't super exciting, but hopefully by the end of the summer we will have brought the grass back to life and made the yard a little nicer.This is the living room. The three couches came with the house so we won't be taking any of those back to Utah.
This is the dining room or really our second living room. The love sac is super fun. When we got here it smelled not so great, but we washed the cover and left it outside for a few days and then worked the magic of Febreeze and now it's fantastic! We do plan to get some real kitchen chairs. That might actually be one of the things I build this summer.
This is our incredible kitchen. I've never seen so much cabinet space in my life. I actually have an empty cupboard or two. It's amazing. I'm really going to miss this when we go back to Utah.
This is our office/random storage space for things we don't have shelves for since we left those in Utah. :) It works. Thanks to the in-laws for letting us borrow the table for a desk this summer.
This just might be the coolest room in the house. I was out of town this weekend and Bill set up our projector and speaker system. The speakers on the foot of the bed are slightly problematic for Bill since he's tall enough to actually hit them, but it's pretty fantastic to have a big screen and a comfy bed to lounge on while watching our movies with surround sound. I promise we'll move the speakers if anyone comes down to visit and needs a place to sleep. :)
And of course our bedroom. I think the best part of this room is that it has a ceiling fan. The previous owners put one in every room save the kitchen and I love it! It's been in the 80's and 90's here most of the time and I haven't had to turn on the AC yet because of those wonderful fans.

When we got here we bought some new plants and I had so much fun potting them and moving my other plants around. It's the closest I get at the moment to the garden I will have as soon as I have a place to put it. I'm going to start building some furniture from this absolutely amazing blog I discovered a few months back called knockoff wood. These are what I'm planning for the moment:

http://www.knock-offwood.com/2009/11/plans-simplest-nightstand-retail-299_9836.html

http://www.knock-offwood.com/2010/01/plan-hyde-side-table.html

http://www.knock-offwood.com/2010/01/plan-hyde-console-table-pottery-barn.html

http://www.knock-offwood.com/2009/12/plans-little-farmhouse-table-for.html

I need a few tools and a bunch of wood and then I'm going to get started! You should seriously go check out this site if you have any interest in do it yourself kinds of things. Bill is going to help too, but I have way more time at the moment so I may do a lot of the work at first. I'm so excited!